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I would like to learn best practices in creating release template with MS Release Management.

What is the use of control flow tools red marked in the below screen?

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Daniel Mann
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Sreekanth Mohan
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1 Answers1

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"Sequence" serves no purpose as far as I've seen.

"Parallel" is a container. You can put multiple servers (or multiple tags) into the Parallel container, and Release Management will execute the actions defined for those servers (or tags) in parallel.

Note: Servers defined in tags are automatically parallelized. There's no need to put a single tag into a parallel block.

"Manual intervention" allows you to halt a release at a certain point and notify a user or group of a manual step that has to be taken before the release can continue. Once the appropriate action is taken, they can use the normal approval tools to either "Accept" (they did the manual step, and it was successful) or "Reject" (they didn't do the manual step, or the manual step failed). If they choose "Reject", the release will fail. If they choose "Accept", the release will continue.

Daniel Mann
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  • I have tried to release multiple website to the same server from a single build. Parallel is not making any change. Could you suggest a proper way in this scenario? – Sreekanth Mohan Oct 31 '14 at 07:10
  • @SreekanthMohan in which sense isn't it making a change? Are your websites not deployed? Or is it not done in parallel? – Wouter de Kort Oct 31 '14 at 09:02
  • It's not done parallel. It's working same like when we design the template with out this Parallel component. – Sreekanth Mohan Oct 31 '14 at 12:14
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    Parallel only applies to **different** servers. If you try to take multiple actions on a single server in parallel, it's naturally going to happen serially. Executing actions on one server in parallel can easily lead to race conditions and deadlocks. – Daniel Mann Oct 31 '14 at 15:08
  • As for Sequence flow, they can be used within a parallel flow. It is useful when you put multiple servers inside your sequence. – joerage Nov 08 '14 at 11:55
  • There seems to be a problem with Manual intervention task which stops the build and its marked as rejected. Overall currently, RM doesn't provide sufficient insights into how parallel/sequential and manual intervention can be managed. What if one parallel task fails and another is in hold state? Does build fail entirely? What if one parallel is allowed to fail and entire build should continue? – Alexander Schmidt Nov 07 '16 at 17:17
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    @AlexanderSchmidt You're correct, the behavior is not clear or easily discoverable. You should transition to the new web-based Release hub that was introduced in TFS 2015 Update 2. – Daniel Mann Nov 07 '16 at 22:42